WWZIZ: The 'Scientist'
by cupidity11
Summary: An account of the Zombie Apocolypse.   Inspired by WWZ by Max Brooks. A contest entry on dA.


Center of Science, Nameless Town, USA

[I find Dib in the middle of a vast lab. He is hunched over several test tubes, glasses slipping further down his nose as I approach. Hesitantly I clear my throat and he seems startled but, otherwise happy to see me. I am told that he has much work to do, so I will be conducting my interview while he does his job. It seems a difficult subject to speak about and he takes several minutes to contemplate how to begin.]

I was just a kid. Just celebrated my seventeenth birthday, in fact, when it happened. Unlike a lot of people I wasn't entirely blind slighted to the fact that it could happen. But, I certainly wasn't prepared. In fact when the time came I was sitting on my couch, watching television. The sounds that came from outside finally broke past the barrier my mind had created.

The screaming and the horrible moaning that seemed never ending. They did that as I'm sure you know when they found prey, unintentionally alerting every single one of them around for miles. Hundreds maybe clambering over one and other to reach the fresh meat.

I heard a lot of people went insane just from the noises of tearing flesh, the begging and praying to a god that never listened.

**There's been some speculation that you know the very beginning source of the whole epidemic?**

[He nods and gestures towards the beakers and slides on the lab table.]

Well, actually there have been reports of this kind of stuff since the beginning of time. Cavemen and Egyptians carved it into their legacy. Romans and the Aztecs experienced it firsthand. Little incidents that have been covered up, brushed aside. Perhaps this was inevitable but I think that it could've been prevented but for one person.

**The prisoner at Dewchang? **

[Dib shakes his head and scoffs.]

Of course not. That's what everyone assumes. And rightly so. But, he was a plant. The beginning of a plan. The person responsible lived my street. Or at least he did…I don't know where he is now.

[His eyes get a sort of faraway look before he shakes it off.]

But, the point is that he had been planning for five years to destroy any normal semblance of human life. He hated humanity and hated being on this planet. In all the time I knew him he never once showed any sign of being human at all. I believe from finding I discovered in his lab and way he was in general that Zim was the start of the Zombie Apocalypse.

I can remember his face. The easy smug way he did everything. This would've been so perfect to him. To find this long dormant gene and to find out what it did must've made him ecstatic. Then to watch the humans slowly destroy themselves…well that was the kicker wasn't it?

**And you haven't seen him since?**

No. Not once. I mean, I've searched…After they broke into my house an-and took my sister and my father…he was the only thing I had left. Then going there, fighting through a full crowd of those creatures, those abominations of my old skool mates and teachers and neighbors…to break into his house and find him gone…well it was the ultimate 'fuck-you'.

Zim was a cruel bastard. Very, very cruel. He loved to watch people suffer but it was only because he himself hated that he was stuck here. Yet, I found myself longing to see him. Out of some long buried childhood memories. We used to 'play' together. Never found any trace of him. Just the information and the empty rooms of his base.

**I'm so sorry for your loss. **

It's fine. Been ten years right? I'm over it.

**How could he have gotten access to the gene? It was tightly locked up in government keeping.**

Zim did that. He took the impossible and found it as a challenge. He probably hacked their databases and then broke in one night. Easy, peasy. At least for him. So, normal too. It's just like him to leave all this hell, to not care about families and kids and…me.

**You cared for him. Too bad they never found a body or anything. **

I did.

[Dib laughs quietly although it sounds rather choked up as if he's holding back not crying.]

Oh. I found the body.

**But, you said—**

I know. I said I never found HIM. Not the fucking monster he became.

**Oh. So…he was…**

Yeah. It was after I had broken into his base, found everything. I was covered in blood from my own sibling. Tears running down my face from seeing the horror, and I knew shock wouldn't be far behind. I had to find a safe place. A safe high place because they can get through doors easy and one drop of blood has them groaning and moaning that hunting call. I ran down the streets, sweating in the dawn, eyes peeled for any sign of them and I stopped in my tracks at the bottom of a hill because I needed to breathe or I would pass out and then they would get me.

Looking around I knew my best bet would be the old water tower. It was tall and if I drew the ladder up, no one could follow me. But, then I heard it.

It was this horrible screeching sound. They all sound like that I guess. Mouths wide, teeth rotting and pieces of their victims hanging from them. Their jaws all unhinged and eyes unseeing. [Shivers violently.]

So, I reached for the sword I had concealed in my jacket [Mimes bringing the weapon out of his lab coat.] to bring it down on any fucking Z-Head to come close to me and then froze…

[There are unleashed tears there in his eyes.] The monster at the top of the hill had green skin. Not molding or rotting but genuine green, like jade. And I knew it was him…well an impersonation of him.

I was almost like those stupid people who try to reason with them, who attempt to touch them and it almost cost me. I begged. I pleaded and tried to induce memories of his life. But, he just kept stumbling down the hill and from the horrible noise he made I knew soon more would come…

With tears blurring my vision I chopped off his head and then his legs and arms. They never die…even when they lose their heads…the mouths keep moving even though they can't scream because their vocal chords are gone…

Yeah. I still miss him. I miss what this fucking war has taken from us. That's why I'm trying to reverse engineer a cure, or at least an anti viral.

**Why exactly?**

[Now there are tears that stream down his pale face.] Because no one deserves to have to slaughter a friend…even if that friend was closer to an enemy.

[I am directed out of the make shift science wing and told that Dib needs to take his pills. The people at the institution go all out for some special cases. The ones who can't be cured or reasoned with. Even so far as coloring water to make different appearing chemicals and give the patient a lab coat. ]

I heard a lot of people went insane just from the noises of tearing flesh, the begging and praying to a god that never listened...


End file.
